The Hearts We Sold(77)

The thought was a happy one. “Hey,” she said, smiling, and took his hand. Their fingers laced and he gave her hand a squeeze.

She half expected him to make some sort of joke about tonight, but he did not. He simply pressed a kiss against the crown of her head, and then turned to his left.

Riley was sitting by the vault. She was dressed in worn boots, black jeans, and a loose sweatshirt. Her thick eyeliner looked as if it belonged on a football player. She looked ready for war. “Save the lovey-dovey stuff for after we’ve blown up a void, okay?”

James smiled, but it was brittle.

“We’ll be all right,” said Dee, and bumped his shoulder with her own. He felt solid, comforting, and she took strength from that. “We’ve done this before. We’ll have creepy-as-hell backup from the other demons, and thanks to you and Gremma, we have a few weapons.”

Riley shrugged. “Hey, demolitions experts have to know how things burn. I may have… tested a few recipes.”

“You and Gremma are well-matched,” said Dee drily.

Riley gave her a carefree grin.

Then Dee heard the approach of the Agathodaemon. He strode around the corner in his usual suit, an umbrella tucked beneath his left arm. He surveyed the three of them, heaved a little sigh. His step was slow, and he eyed the teenagers the way a buyer might look over a prospective car.

“I should have made more of you,” he said, a little regretfully. “Or brought in another troop.”

“Why didn’t you?” asked Riley bluntly. “Three of us. Seems a bit thin to me.”

The Daemon sighed again. “Unfortunately, my methods are considered… dangerous by most of my kind. They frown on me making more than three or four of you in a single location. The one time I attempted to do so, the constructs were taken from me. You are not easily controlled, not when you still possess minds of your own. Random, chaotic, fragile.”

“Then why do it at all?” said James in a low voice. He was more serious than Dee had ever heard.

The Daemon slid him a look. “Because you heartless are more effective than the homunculi, but you carry too many memories in your heart. The voids will seek to expel or tear apart anything that is real, that is vibrantly alive. Memories and emotions are incompatible with a void. Thus, the only creatures that may enter are like the burrowers—empty, hungry things. Or the homunculi—dead and controlled. And you—my hollow little constructs.”

He said the words fondly, though, and perhaps that was the most frightening thing of all.

“And if we hadn’t shown up,” said Riley, “what would you have done?”

He glanced at her. “Well, for one thing, it would have taken longer to track you each down individually. And this wouldn’t have been nearly as impressive.”

Dee expected him to reach for her, to take hold of her arm the way he had when he transported her before. But he did no such thing.

He snapped his fingers.

The world shifted.

Blurred beneath their feet.

It was as if he had yanked the floor out from under them; when Dee stumbled and forced herself to balance again, she stood in an entirely new location. James’s hand tightened around hers, and she blinked several times, tried to make sense of her surroundings.

They all stood outside of what looked like an abandoned mall.

Of course the world would end in a mall, she thought.

“Come,” said the Daemon. His moment of levity was over; his features were drawn, pale, and his long fingers twitched toward his umbrella. He strode through a shattered window.

The three teenagers lingered on the threshold for a moment. “Whatever happens tonight, I’m glad I met the two of you,” said Riley.

“Same,” answered Dee softly.

James did not answer, but his thumb stroked the back of her hand.

Dee stepped into the remnants of the mall, a backpack full of Molotov cocktails slung over her shoulder. She glanced around, at the cracked linoleum, the shards of broken glass, and the walls bending in on themselves. The ceiling was half caved in, and the dim moonlight fought a losing battle against the shadows.

“No rats yet,” she said, and Riley and James followed her inside. The acrid scent of burned plastic hung in the air, and Riley tried to breathe through the sleeve of her cotton shirt.

James glanced around and said, “I get the whole post-apocalyptic-fashion thing, but this is taking it a bit too far.”

Riley coughed and turned it into a laugh. “You never know—the look might catch on.”

Something scurried along the wall, darting through a crack in the granite. The rats were here after all. “Let’s get this over with,” Dee said.

Riley let out another shaky laugh. “Oh, this is the part where you give us a pep talk, right? ‘We can do it.’ ‘If this is how the world is going to end, at least we won’t feel anything, right?’” She shook her head, straight dark hair falling in her face. “Come on, then. Give us a pep talk.”

Dee gave her a disparaging look. “First of all, I’m not Cora. I don’t do pep talks. But I’ll tell you this: We’re going to win. Because we’ll do whatever it takes. We’re heartless.”

James looked over the destruction, and there was a twist to his mouth when he said, “‘This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a’ bad pun.”